Red Hat ditched the user-accessible default system Python in RHEL 8, but offers ways to have several versions of Python available and ways for sysadmins to configure the target of /usr/bin/python.
Anyway, we're finally near the end of supported environments caring about Python 2, so the difference between pip and pip3 will stop causing most of us problems soon... (Yeah, I know some people will use Python 2 beyond EOL, but at this point that's their task and the task of whomever they pay for assistance, not everyone else's.)
> I know some people will use Python 2 beyond EOL, but at this point that's their task and the task of whomever they pay for assistance, not everyone else's
Virtually every common OS (i.e. Windows, iOS, and Linux) provides Python 2.7 by calling `python`, and Python 3.x by calling `python3` so it's more than "some people" using Python beyond EOL -- it's two languages being used simultaneously.
This is what most languages do when they make a breaking upgrade, e.g. Perl 5.x and Perl 6, or Apache Groovy (which ships two compilers in its Groovy 2 download bundle, i.e. the Groovy 1 compliant one used by Gradle and Jenkins etc, and the later 2012 one with the invoke-dynamic capabilities added. Two weeks ago, the Groovy project managers announced that Groovy 3 would keep on doing this, putting the rewritten parser into the compiler which no-one uses, and keeping the main compiler at Groovy 1 capabilities.)
For all of those common OSes, either Python 2 is no longer installed by default or a plan to do that in the near future has been announced. Many of those are preparing no longer to offer Python 2 at all, though few have already dropped it. I don't think RHEL 9, Debian 11, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, Windows's new Python stub after the EOL date passes, or 1-2 major versions of macOS in the future will offer it.
Yes, OS vendors will temporarily offer some transition past EOL for the versions they ship. But only temporarily, and only in limited form.
Anyway, we're finally near the end of supported environments caring about Python 2, so the difference between pip and pip3 will stop causing most of us problems soon... (Yeah, I know some people will use Python 2 beyond EOL, but at this point that's their task and the task of whomever they pay for assistance, not everyone else's.)